Anger over Royal mining claims in Anglesey and Gwynedd

Homeowners pledge to fight back against the Crown Estate for the rights to land beneath their properties

Pwllheli is one of the areas targeted by the Crown Estate's land registry claims

Claims by the Crown Estate to the rights to mine beneath North Wales homes have caused consternation in Anglesey and Gwynedd.

Letters from the Land Registry have started arriving informing residents that the minerals and mining rights beneath their homes belong to the Crown Estate.

Outraged homeowners have pledged to challenge the notices, which have been issued to ensure that the rights are not lost.

Anglesey AM Rhun ap Iorwerth is among those who have expressed anger that claims to “ancient” rights have appeared “out of nowhere”.

Bob Wright, who is the county councillor for Pwllheli South and received a letter at home, said residents had not been given enough time to respond to the notice.

He said: “I was given 10 days to respond. They should have given us at least six weeks to respond.”

Cllr Wright said he replied to the letter to express his opposition to the claim.

“I don’t know if there are legal rights, but it’s unfair that they should try to claim rights to what is under my land,” he said.

“If you own a piece of land, you should own it down to the centre of the Earth.

“What’s mine is mine – why should you own a part of it without paying for it?”

Mr ap Iorwerth said: “I am told by the Crown Estate that there are no plans to carry out mining, but the uncertainty in itself is a cause of concern to constituents.

“People bought their properties having paid to check if there were any rights attached to them, and were told that there were not. On any other purchase, I’m sure the customer could rightly argue that they had been misled.

“I don’t want people to worry about the effect of these letters, but people do worry. It angers me that ancient legislation appears out of nowhere without, it seems, any real opportunity for people to fight back.”

Marilyn Selwyn, of the Innes estate in Pwllheli, says she will attempt to challenge the claim after she received a letter.

She said: “I thought it was a scam at first. We didn’t know anything about it.

“Most people have just agreed to it. Everyone we speak to thinks we’re onto a lost cause.

“But we’re going to look at our deeds. If we have any right to the minerals in our deeds, we will register an objection.

“If not, we will have to agree to it, but we definitely wouldn’t be happy about it.

“It’s the principle of the thing. We thought our land was all ours. We didn’t think we only owned the topsoil and not what’s underneath.”

A spokeswoman for the Crown Estate said: “We hold the minerals title to various areas, covering some 80 manors, largely in North Wales.

“Because of its historic nature, most of this title had not previously been registered. Since the coming into force of the Land Registration Act 2002, owners of severed mineral rights which are ‘manorial’ are obliged to register their mineral interest if it is to be protected.

“We would emphasise that registration should not be taken as an indication of any intent by the Crown Estate to exploit the mineral interest underneath owners’ properties, but merely to ensure that our existing minerals titles do not risk being lost over the long term.”

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Mark Thoma

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.